Epilogue: The Temptation of Clark Kent

Clark Kent passed out of the bright day and into the twilight of the club. It was not a mere bar. Every stick of furniture was at least a century old, hand-polished and carefully kept. The cut crystal glassware was chased with real gold. There were heads mounted on the wall of creatures now extinct. Old men sat smoking Cuban cigars and drinking Cuban rums, despite the embargo. Judges, senators.

He was guided to a booth in the back. The man sitting with his back to the wall was big, handsome in a rugged way. The dark wavy hair and heavy brows, the dark tanned skin and dark eyes reminded Kent of an illustration he had seen of Long John Silver as a child. Even dressed in a bespoke suit, with gold cufflinks, he looked like nothing more than a pirate.

"Thank you for coming," he said, and gestured across the table. "Please, take a seat. May I get you something?"

Blue eyes peered out from behind heavy plastic frames. Clark Kent exuded a confidence completely alien to that of everyone else in the room. He may have been wearing the cheapest suit, but he was the one thing here that couldn't be bought or sold.

Not that everyone in the club believed that.

"No," he said. "What do you want, Satanus?"

"I want my sister back," the demon said, as he steepled his fingers. "Just like you, I am sure, want Lois Lane. The current situation is unacceptable. Fortunately, there's a way we can both get what we want."

The reporter stood stock-still. The piercing blue eyes were calm, but seemed to stare straight through the other man's skull. Satanus met the gaze without flinching. The Man of Steel was a formidable opponent, but his abilities lay only in the real of the natural world. His X-ray vision could scan the inside of the demon's skull, but this fleshy form was malleable...his true form, like his true thoughts, lay safely hidden far from the hero's perception.

"I'm listening."

"Blaze and I are matched in power. Any effort to forcibly remove her from her situation would be met with opposition, and a fight I'm not sure I could win. Likewise, if you attempted to physically remove the obstacle to your love's affections, Lois Lane would no doubt resent and reject you. However, there is a workaround."

Satanus held his hands about a foot apart, above the table. The air between his fingers crackled and began to glow. In a moment, a hazy, glowing sphere appeared between his outstretched hands...and shapes formed inside of it, quickly resolving into images. Like a hole in space and time.

Clark Kent watched as images flashed past of Lois and Blaze together. Sweaty, humping bodies. A scarlet shaft stretching a pale pink pussy. Black jizz oozing out of a gaping hole. Lois Lane tunning her tongue up and down an exhausted, drooping crimson cock. Yet everything was running in reverse...back to the moment when they both met.

"In the event of a contract between us, I can access powers outside my normal remit," Satanus said. "To turn back the clock, to the moment when they were going to meet...and stop it. A whisper in the ear of your past self, and he will swoop in to save the day. Blaze will be brushed aside, Lois Lane will be grateful...and the universe will be restored to its normal course," the demon allowed himself a slight smile. "It's win-win."

In the glowing sphere, a wall collapsed. A red-and-blue blur slammed into Angelica Blaze, ripping her away from Lois Lane. The reporter barely had time to see Superman before the demonic dickgirl was drawn away, lost in a battle with a furious Kryptonian. Caught unprepared, even the powerful demon had no chance of victory...and Lois Lane stared through the gaping hole, as one possible future was carried away.

"What about the baby?"

Satanus blinked. The glowing bubble between his hands popped, became no more than luminescent smoke that floated upwards and quickly faded.

"What?" The demon said.

"Blaze and Lois Lane's child. What will happen to them?" Clark Kent said.

The demon stared into those eyes, unable to read the Kryptonian's facial expression. The blue eyes were fixed on him like a microscope.

"The unborn will have never existed, of course." Satanus' jaw worked. "Of course, if you find that unpalatable, we could wait until after the pregnancy...and then Blaze could simply disappear. That would leave her open...****. Needing someone to comfort her, to fill the sudden gap in her life. A ready-made family, if you're into that kind of thing."

Clark Kent sat staring straight ahead, and intuition told Satanus that something was wrong. He knew that these temptations were real...he could feel and taste the fluctuations on the Kryptonian's aura, the love he felt whenever the images of Lois Lane had appeared. The demon set his jaw. He didn't believe that anyone was incorruptible; it was only a matter of finding the right lever, the right price to buy the man's soul...

"What guarantee do I have?" Clark Kent said at last. "That you're telling the truth? That you can, and will, do what you claim?"

Satanus sighed a little. A sign that the Kryptonian was, at least, mortal. He showed the man the palm of his left hand. The index finger of his right hand became a single red claw, and he quickly scratched a symbol in his palm, black blood welling up from the wounds.

"This is a pre-contractual guarantee," Satanus said. "If for whatever reason I cannot fulfill the terms of the deal, by my own blood I will be banished to the Abyss."

The demon held out his gory hand.

"All you have to do is take my hand, and our pact is sealed. I am already committed."

Clark Kent's hand came up from beneath the table. The demon allowed himself a slight curl to the lips as the Kryptonian's left hand hovered over his gory palm. So clean, so unbloodied...the demon's nostrils twitched, fascinated to see how the Man of Steel would sully and sell his own soul...

The hand clamped down. Satanus snarled as the steely grip locked onto his palm, the wounds burning...and then the burning began to spread down his arm, and Satanus frowned. Something was wrong, something was...

Black sparks flicked over the Kryptonian's form...and the mass of the tall, broad-shouldered man melted away. Leaving a noticeably thinner, shorter woman dressed in an ill-fitting suit. Her dark eyes were identical to Satanus', in her human form. A black wedding band was on the third finger of the hand that clamped her brother's tight.

"You...but I saw his aura, I..." Satanus said.

"He allowed me to borrow enough of his aura to fool you," Blaze said. Her voice was cold and harsh. "You should have known better than to approach him, brother. You should have taken the risk of attacking me directly. As much as I hate to admit it, he is the better man...and far out of either of our leagues."

Blaze's fingers pressed inward, and Satanus stifled a screech as his hand was crushed. The burning pain shot all the way up his arm now, and anyone watching would have seen the flesh drain from his features. The bones of his face pressed against slack skin, the eyes dark hollows. His essence swiftly drained into the Abyss through the channel he had opened.

"Sister!" He gasped, his free hand clawing at the table. "Please! Mercy! I...I wouldn't..."

"If it's a boy," Blaze said. "We are naming him Clark. Not even your name will survive you."

The skin of Satanus blackened and collapsed in on itself. Blaze found herself holding a palmful of black goo, sitting opposite an empty suit. A part of her wondered if she should feel something at the loss of the only family she had ever known.

Then she thought of Lois. The rest was easy.

"...and there they are," the doctor said, as she pointed to the blob on the sonogram. "Eight weeks along, everything looks great. You two are going to be proud parents of twins!"

Lois Lane smiled. Clark Kent held her hand and coughed, slightly embarrassed.

"I'm not the father," he said. "Just a friend of the family."